There is an ever-growing stream of tools for capturing citations, note-taking, and other study aids. Each of these either fills a gap or seeks to replace an older approach. Any tool recommended here may be gone by the time you read this and there may be new tools that many favor. If one of these links no longer works or you discover a tool not listed that you think might be helpful to others, please let us know by sending an email to reference@gs.edu.
This guide primarily lists tools with free versions. However, most of these tools provide more capabilities if you pay for them. Some tools listed here are not free. There is a cost, often a significant one on a student budget, for them, but they may justify the cost, depending upon your needs. None of these is a silver bullet, but each can help you with your research and study.
Note: If you learned a different citation style, like in-text citations for Turabian, APA, MLA, or some other style, most of that will not help you. Pretend you don't know it in order to avoid mixing styles.
As you research, you will find resources that you want to use. There are tools to help you capture the bibliographic information. Some of these also will store a PDF file of an article you are adding.
Be aware that many tools read data from library records. The format of information in a library record is not Turabian/Chicago Manual of Style. When you generate citations or bibliographies from such tools, you may need to edit what is produced to make it Turabian-compliant.
Annotations can be useful to highlight important things in what you are reading, whether for a research paper, to prepare for a test, or other reasons you may have for wanting to find a specific piece of information again, quickly. It is like a bookmark but focused on sentences, not whole pages.
Annotated bibliographies are bibliographies in which each item has a short description of its contents.
When using multiple resources, it is important to keep track of what you found and what you want to use. Taking notes can aid this process well.
Note Cards
While note cards, available in many retail stores, seem low-tech, they can be very helpful for taking notes and organizing your research. For example, one card can be used to write down a quotation. Add to that card an id number, say, 5. Then create another card that is also labeled 5 and has the bibliographic information for this resource. When you are done taking notes from multiple resources, you can easily sort and organize the notes in the order that you want to write your paper and you will always have a record of where the quotation came from..
There are many web apps for create and manage a to-do list. The purpose for these in an academic setting is to schedule assignments, study times, etc. Each of these has pros and cons. Many of these have basic functionality unless you pay to upgrade to "premium." In addition, any of these might work better for one person than another. Being listed here, as with any tool on this guide, is a suggestion and it's best to find the tool that works best for you individually.
Seek First and the Library Catalog both provide tools to help you create bibliographic entries. The instructions below use example items. You can do the same thing with your search results.
Run a search.
For any result you want to cite, there are at least two ways to get a citation.
A. Single search result
The citation ends in a URL but that is only a URL for the search result and may be deleted; it is not for finding the actual item. The Turabian book has instructions on choosing an actual URL if the item is read online.
B. Multiple Items
When researching, you may find multiple items of relevance. If you click the yellow folder to the right of the title, you will add that Item to your virtual "folder." Once you are done,
Generally, you will receive an email message for each item in your folder that is checked. Each email message will include
a. A properly formatted Turabian citation that you can copy and paste into your bibliography if you use this item in your paper.
b. If the item, such as a journal article, showed that it had a full-text version, such as a PDF file,
One advantage of this approach is that it provides complete information for each item in your email. If you do not remember where you got something that you are citing, you can go back and look in your email messages. Along with proper Turabian citations, you will receive any full-text PDF files associated with any given item.
You can also get citations for items in the library catalog.
1. Click on the library catalog tab.
2. Perform a search.
3. It is recommended that you narrow your search results to less than 25 years. Also, the library catalog is the best place to look for books. Click the box under "Format" for books. Also, for most masters-level work, our library can provide all the resources that you need. Under Libraries, click the checkbox next to Gateway Seminary.
4. For example, a search for systematic theology brought up
Oden, Thomas. Systematic Theology.
as the first result.(available here: https://gslibrary.on.worldcat.org/oclc/37019242).
5. Click on the title.
5. Once you see the details of the item record, near the top of page are some choices for the record, such as "Link," which is where the link to this item came from. Click on "Cite".
6. Under "Copy a Citation," is a drop-down box for choosing a citation type.
Click on "Select a citation style".
7. Click on "Turabian (notes - bibliography) 9th ed.
8. Copy the citation and paste it into your bibliography.
Oden, Thomas C. Systematic Theology. HarperCollins pbk.ed. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1987.
9. As the message above the citation states, proofread the citation. In this case, this is listed as the 1at (edition). This is not needed for a first edition. Remove "1st". Also, unless you are writing a book review on this item, remove "pkb. ed." as that is not needed.
The library catalog does not provide a facility to send all the items you are interested in to you all together in a single email. However, you can build a list of entries by clicking "Save" on the button bar at the top of each record. When you are done saving items, click above the link above the record
The '1' indicates that one record has been saved. When you are done saving items, you can copy the list and paste in into a document. You could copy and paste the citation you get for a single item into your bibliography and edit it there or replace the item in the list with the citation.
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